


Purveyors of Filth

by fourfreedoms



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Crack, M/M, alternate universe - author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-02
Updated: 2011-11-02
Packaged: 2017-10-25 15:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourfreedoms/pseuds/fourfreedoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate is a romance novelist. He's very popular. Too bad nobody knows he's not a woman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purveyors of Filth

Nate started writing under the pseudonym Natalie Edgewood when he was twenty-three. His sister had gotten the Idiot’s Guide to Writing Romance novels as a joke gift and one thanksgiving where he was home at his parent's house Nate had wound up reading it when he couldn’t sleep. Frankly he’d thought he could probably write a better Idiot's Guide, but it gave him a few ideas.

When his fifth novel won a RITA, it was a problem. Natalie Edgewood didn’t exist. Her bio on the inside flap was a complete fabrication. It said she lived in Portland, Oregon with her two cats, her husband Jesse, and their temperamental parakeet. Well, there were no cats, no Jesse, no parakeet—temperamental or otherwise--and Nate lived in Boston. The publishers didn’t want to unmask him, so he thought somebody would have to accept the award in absentia, and they'd just pretend Natalie Edgewood was getting surgery or had a funeral to attend to or something. It seemed like a fair plot. But the publishers weren't going to pass up an opportunity to put a human face on their cashcow. They sent a hired actress in his place and said he could pretend to be Jesse.

He stayed up the night before puzzling over his acceptance speech--possibly longer than he had the night before he submitted his dissertation--finally giving in and going to bed. The actress, her name was Sarah, was going to say it, not him. The publisher was probably going to give her some pithy and sweet trash that only somebody paid to speak would say.

As they were outfitting him and Sarah in a matching suit and dress, so they'd look like the adorable couple they were, they informed him that they'd hired Sarah a bodyguard. They told Nate not to worry about it. It was a little silly, they assured him, but apparently there was some cause for worry at these events. Nate wouldn’t know, he’d never gotten to do a signing. This was, in fact, going to be Natalie’s first public appearance. Nate sighed, looked down at the fake wedding band on his hand. It was getting a bit too complicated.

And it all went horribly, horribly wrong. The bodyguard got shot right outside the hotel after Sarah accepted Nate’s award, and Nate and Sarah got stuffed into the back of a speeding van. His grandma had always said romance novels were purveyors of vicious disgusting filth and later on that God was disappointed in his sisters when they read them. Nate supposed if that was true, God probably cried about people _writing_ them. This was his divine intervention or karmic retribution, something awe-inspiring and beyond his control. Should've listened to Grandma. He sighed and did his best to cooperate. No sense in being beaten if he could avoid it.

Sarah was a sobbing mess. Please, please, she kept whining. It was completely useless. Either they were dealing with insane people who wanted them dead and could not be deterred or they were dealing with insane people who wanted something specifically other than death and could not be deterred. He tried to tell her it was going to be okay. Which, all right, he knew that was a lie, but she was likely to give herself a heart attack and thus render any stake their attackers had in the matter completely null.

For two days, he endured being carted around as Jesse, Natalie Edgewood’s wooden husband, having his wrists tied to various things and being spoon-fed soy yogurt, which he hated, while their attackers waited for whatever it was they wanted. By then Nate was reasonably sure it was not death. Somebody at the top of this brilliant group of criminals seemed to be hoping to force the press to publish their manifesto by kidnapping one of its bestselling authors. It was all very strange. Nate was only contracted for one more book. They should've nabbed Stephanie Meyer or something--worst extortionists ever.

Nate missed his bed, felt badly for Sarah who never stopped carrying on, and hoped the insane attackers would give up their mad quest. Finally when he'd had just about all he could stand, the door at the warehouse they were being held burst open and several black-swathed figures shoved in and started shooting people. Nate thought watching the carnage, even in the purpose of saving his life, was kinda worse than hanging out in an uncomfortable warehouse for two days. At least he’d been able to think of a few new ideas for lack of anything better to do.

“You’re going to be fine,” one of the figures said, stopping before him and pulling off his mask. He was very tall. Nate supposed he would make a good romance hero. Nice cheekbones and a good strong mouth. That whole thing. The romance hero pulled out a knife to cut Nate loose from his bonds.

“Yes, well thank you, but they weren’t planning to kill me,” Nate replied. “Now they’re all dead.”

A raucous voice yelled over the man’s shoulder, “OH SWEET! Does this one have Stockholm syndrome? I always wanted to see that.” A skinny man who Nate wasn’t altogether sure should be allowed to handle high-caliber weapons bounced up, hair in horrible disarray from his ski-mask.

“Be assured, I am merely lamenting their wasteful death," he replied, toeing a corpse with a very well polished dress shoe.

“Who talks like that?” the skinny man said, turning to the tall man, who smiled and replied, “Natalie Edgewood.”

Nate’s head jerked upwards. “How did—”

The tall man shrugged, gestured off at the screaming Sarah, and said, “Ray, can you deal with that?” He kept a careful hand on Nate’s elbow even though Nate assured him he was fine, quite able to walk, he’d probably been treated better than most prison inmates.

Brad shut him up with a kiss, a sudden brush of his lips over Nate’s. Nate stared up at him, frozen in surprise.

“I always wanted to lay one on Natalie Edgewood.”

“I’m sorry,” Nate said, blinking up at him. “You’ve read them?”

Brad grinned, made a jerking off motion with his hand that caused the Ray person-thing to cackle, and then walked off to the waiting ambulance. Nate figured it was meant for him to go to the ambulance too, but he was still stuck on that hand gesture.


End file.
